85 comments to New EPA radiation tests show Cesium in California rainwater at highest level since crisis began

It is remarkable how much longer it takes to prepare to leave the house. Following safety protocols to live in a low level radioactive environment takes additional time.

Here are some practical suggestions.

Always travel with a umbrella. You never know when you will be caught in radioactive rainfall.

Always travel with RO/DI purified water. Avoid drinking from public water fountains. If you must, purchase bottled water, if you do not have your own purified water with you from home.

Keep your car windows closed as much as possible. Avoid riding around the city with your car vent on open.

Avoid riding a moped or motorcycle or bike in the rain. Air pressure will push the radioactive rain droplets into your lungs. Upon riding in rain upon returning home, strip down in stage one decontamination room leaving all clothing and shoes in the decon area. Shower, soaping fully through three cycles of cleansing and rinse. Do not wash contaminated clothes with bleach, (bleach volatilizes I-131) use borax instead to add to detergent. Wash three times with two rinses each. Do not mix rain contaminated clothing/gear with normal wash.

Dry clothes in dryer. Due to fallout, do not hang clothing outside to dry.

You said: “Avoid riding a…bike in the rain…Air pressure will push the radioactive rain droplets into your lungs…upon returning home…shower, soaping fully through three cycles of cleansing and rinse.”

Ummm… no.

For the vast majority of US citizens, the water you’re bathing in in that shower has roughly the same radioactive contamination that the rainwater does (municipal water supplies filter for a variety of biological and chemical contaminants, but will not remove I-131 or the other fallout you fear.)

If breathing in a few drops of rain scares you, then repeatedly inhaling the steam from a hot shower should terrify you.

I’m not telling you whether it should scare you or not – that depends on your risk profile, your fear of cancer, etc. I’m just telling you that the countermeasures you outline are a waste of your time and energy.

The “expert liers” are making sure that they only report on one radioactive isotope, so that you will not relize the vast slew of radioactive substances that are being released from the ruptured reactors.

I have 6 months food in storage, a diesel genset with 300 gallons on fuel, PM’s, etc.
I never dreamed of this shit.
Totally in the dark, for all of us.
What? no fresh veggies, lettuce, milk, beef whatever, for ever and ever.
Clusterfuck is too kind a classification for this.

You may want to pick up some solar panels and a few marine deep cell batteries and a converter 12v to A/C, buy for max watts you will be using for power, Harbor Freight has panels $199.00 3 to a box 45 watt output with light and cycle box 3v 6v 9v 12 volts output female plugins, that is what are on my boxs, one box comes with the three panels. You can run a lot of different things, I have been buy reduce appliance’s for several year or more all new 12 volt instead of 120 a/c, Many Power pugs step down from 120 to 12v or less, many can be taken apart to bypass the 120v inside converters. need a little electrical knowledge to do. If the electrics are down, you will have free use, no worry about using the gas up !

You can buy canned meat, fish, and fresh veggies from South American or other Southern Hemisphere locations. The fallout is going to stay mainly in the Northern Hemisphere because of wind and ocean currents that isolate the two halves of the world.

Argentinian beef is among the best in the world, grass fed and tasty, and is widely available in canned form. Expensive, but you might try Costco.

The quoted rates of under 10 pCi/liter translate to must less than 1 disintegration per second per liter of water. Suppose, as Noah suggests, you go out in a radioactive cesium rainstorm, and your clothes get soaked with a liter of rainwater. In this case you’ll be exposed to about 1 disintegration per second.

That’s nothing on the scale of the exposure you get all the time just from cosmic ray muons, and those go all the way through your body, ionizing molecules (yes, including DNA in your cells) as they go. The only way to stop it is to live deep underground, and somehow get rid of the radon from the rocks. Eat a banana, and you’ll get 15 times the radiation dose as you get from your rain soaked clothes.

Folks, we need to keep all these confusing numbers in perspective. We need good measurements, and we need to monitor the levels in our food and drinking water here, in case something changes that TEPCO does or doesn’t tell us about. And, no question, we ned to realize that the situation in Japan is far, far worse, for years to come. But int he US we are still a long, long way from the situation where Fukushima fallout will have any measurable effect on our health. It’s comforting to know we can measure it at such very low levels.

those are extremely bogus comparisons. too many unanswered questions, what about soil water and air contamination, how about the ocean contamination problem. external radiation, like sunlight and other forms normal background radiation, is not the same as ingesting and/or coming into contact with a deadly radioactive substance such as plutionium or uranium isotopes or other radionuclides. study chernobly, study bioaccumulation, get educated, get a clue.

please stop spewing morose gradeschool nonsense. yes there is a definite risk to human health, yes people of all stripes should be concerned.

John’s cv demonstrates incredible productivity in the area of the “search for the Higgs Boson” and collaboration with nuclear organizations including the European organization for nuclear research and Fermilab, the latter of which partners with the US Dept. of Energy and features “Connecting research and industry” “Many a promising innovation dies on its way from the research lab to the commercial market. But with help from government or industry, the survival odds increase….” http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000862

However, there is no research cited on John’s vita (or evidence of involvement with research) on the effects of low-level ionizing radiation on human or animal populations, particularly with respect to internal emitters.

There is though considerable research on this subject of internal emitters available that documents myriad effects from level levels of ionizing radiation, particularly, unfortunately, on embryos, fetuses, and small children.

The information we are receiving from the EPA and UC Berkeley’s studies suggest growing accumulation of contamination in our food and precipitation.

Unfortunately, we are going to be test subjects for the investigation of cumulative effects of long-term exposure to low-level radiation from Fukushima.

Ok, Prof, help me out. It’s K40 in the banana, right? So, when I eat a banana, and at the end of an excretion cycle, say 24 hours, has my K40 level increased, decreased, or stayed the same?

Probably worse if you breathed bananas, like plutonium, if you eat it, you can excrete some of it, but if you breathe it in, bad news. But the only ones I ever knew who breathed bananas were desperate hippies.

John Conway you are either pretty ignorant for a UC Davis person, or you are a nuke proponent. Radiation from radioactive elements is not what we are worried about here, although there is no safe level. The most critical thing here is what the iodine and cesium are doing to us when we breathe them in and swallow them, and what they will do to our food once in the food chain that leads to us. Thanks to people like you, many people are confused about the difference between being exposed to radiation and actually getting the radioactive elements incorporated into their bodies. The first is very bad, the second is much worse. So don’t be an idiot and contribute to the confusion. Do something worthwhile. How much is GE paying you to be a troll on lists like this?

Oh, he’s right about there being a lot of radioactive potassium in bananas and other food sources. The only problem is that radioactive potassium isn’t anywhere near as deadly as iodine or cesium isotopes. We’ve evolved DNA repair mechanisms to deal with the potassium that is essential to our lives in fairly large amounts.

They already spew about that. “Hormesis.” Largely untested new theory, discounting known risks like “low dose phenomena” in children that makes them higher risk and the mountainous studies to the contrary and known, barely reported past experience. The “hide levels, seek diversion on effects” game always happens after these nuclear events.

this sounds like a very strange gradeschool variation of intelligent design theory being spewed here by apologist cornholios. kinda like “both eyes wide shut” propaganda spewage. some would call it censorship. *gasp*

no . it condenses. you need an RO filter with these four elements – The RO membrane, a precarbon filter, a post carbon filter and an ion exchange cartridge. all
RO setups have carbon filters but not all come with an ion exchange filter. you can also replace your precarbon filter with this:http://nuwaterconcepts.com/info-box/trap/ which comes also in a stand alone version. in a RO setup this filter will keep your RO system free of radioactive contaminants. lasts 6 months.

this is what someone else commented about RO systems not being able to filter out radiation… is this true?? “t absolutely sickens me to here the advice from our EPA… Good Grief, they know very well that reverse osmosis and Ion exchange will do so very little to remove any radionuclide from water. I was a plumbing contractor for 14 yrs. and I have installed literally 100’s of reverse osmosis and water softener’s… It is sooo ridiculus and absurd that I almost chocked while reading this. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN FILTER OUT THE RADIO ACTIVE MATERIAL IS TO DISTILL THE WATER…” http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/04/07/how-to-remove-radioactive-iodine-131-from-drinking-water/

The people in the northern hemisphere deserve to know what is happening to them and their futures.

Do not fear “panic.” That is only the first stage of grief. We must face reality, even when it is so stark. You never know what positive outcomes this may spark. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Open-source this problem! It’s our only hope.

The primary concern motivating my posts have to do with the dangers of ingestion of radioactive particles. This fact will be clearly seen upon review of the entire body of my writings here in the comments sections of this site. In the above post, I did not have the time to state my primary concern again.

I notice those “experts” in the mainstream media as well a political leaders seem to focus concern and comparisons that revolve around examples of external sources of naturally occurring solar radiation and ground sources as radon gases, etc.

It is condescending to suggest that we would be concerned about these external sources, and low levels of radiation that we have lived with peaceably for a lifetime.

External exposure, because of distance from Fukushima, is not our primary concern and never was!

This event begun on 311 will take decades to run its course, the advice my post presented are lifestyle changes needed to avoid ingestion of Radioactive particulates over long periods of time.

Simply put, if you come into your home covered with low levels of radiation from snow or rain, you will contaminate your kitchen, furniture, bedding, clothing, pets and children. The chances of ingestion are very great as the radiation spreads and accumulates in your home. Continue to do this for decades and from this lone behavior, ingestion will be guaranteed.

Specific concerns are P-239, P-238, S-89, S-90, C-137, and I-131.

Is there any safe level of ingested plutonium? Perhaps sprinkled, at safe levels, on bananas and eaten by experts at a nuclear safety conference. To demonstrate absolute faith in their own pronouncements.

The “experts” insist that the only long term effects (that is statistically quantifiable) from the Chernobyl disaster was Thyroid cancer. It that true? I find it beyond belief and reason. Fact, medical reports and history have refuted their findings.

“The only way to stop it is to live deep underground …” -John Conway (UC Davis)

Here again, the opinion is in other words, there is nothing you can do, all is safe, like eating a banana. Where have we heard that before?

“All the while he diverted us from looking at the real danger, internal emitters.”
- Noah

Initial Decision10-12-2006
… water limit for plutonium at 0.15 picocuries per liter … The document does not
express such an intention. … establishes that the four liter requirement was …http://www.epa.gov/oalj/orders/doe-rock.pdf

First, to my credentials. I am a particle physicist with 30 years experience in the detection of radiation, mainly very high energy particles. To do this line of work one needs to be trained in radiation safety, handling radioactive sources, and an array of detector technologies. I think I understand the physics of radiation and its detection very well.

I am not a biologist, but I have a basic grasp of what radiation can do to biological systems. I followed the Chernobyl story very closely for years, and I have followed the Fukushima story rather obsessively since the beginning. Fukushima is shaping up to be every bit as bad as Chernobyl and may end up worse.

It is absolutely clear that ingesting substances like Cs-137 and Sr-90, both bone seekers, is far worse than external contact with, say, rainwater. I have been particularly worried about the fact that many radionuclides become concentrated in the food chain in the ocean and on land, and thus end up in us. So far, though, in the US the numbers are still low.

The situation in Japan, however, is bad, and many, many people will get cancers from their exposure to fallout from this disaster, which is far from over, than they otherwise would have gotten. The only thing that has saved Japan is that most of the release has been blown out to sea. But there are many ways the present situation could get a lot worse.

I find it tremendously disturbing that the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant has not been nationalized and control taken by some far more competent organization than TEPCO. But we really don’t know what’s going on there, because we are deliberately kept in the dark. With every bit of new information you can see how much more remains hidden. One of my own greatest fears is that the spent fuel pool in unit 4 could collapse if another strong aftershock occurs. It seems undeniable that fission was underway at the bottom of the pool, and may still be: the I-131 readings were way too high for spent fuel. Anyway there is nothing but a couple meters of water between about a thousand tons of hot (fresh) and spent fuel, and the environment. The pool is leaking and held up by a badly damaged building. As for units 1-3, this to me looks like a long, downward progression. Slowly but surely they are losing the battle. They should have brought in massive multi-megawatt heat exchangers a long time ago, the kind used for giant video display units for example, or at least planned to do so.

I agree, the people in Japan need to know just what they are up against, and we here in the US need to demand that our food supply, our water supply, and our air be monitored closely as the situation progresses. This is crucial – we need to base our fears, and our actions, on accurate measurements and hard numbers, and avoid panic and wild speculation.

Radiation is scary because it’s all around us, and, yes, it can get inside us. You can’t see it or taste it or feel it, and too much can hurt you. But you cannot get away from it. Everyone reading this will get their annual dose of 0.3 mSv of cosmic rays, more if they are at high altitude or fly a lot. As I said above, and which Noah took slightly out of context above, all you can do about cosmic rays is to go underground, but then you’ll have a bigger problem from radon, which is our main natural (non-manmade) background source. On average you’ll get about 3 mSv per year from all sources, no matter what you do.

Noah is right about spreading and internalizing radioactive contamination. But so far, anyway, the numbers for rainwater are clearly very low. The numbers for raw milk are more worrisome, and need to be watched carefully. And there can be local fluctuations which depend on wind and weather, so we need to monitor in as many places as possible.

So, Noah, please don’t try to put words in my mouth, if you would. Let’s keep the discussion here rational and based on facts. I have absolutely zero interest in “diverting attention from the real danger, internal emitters”. But right now it’s the people of Japan need to worry about this, and if things get a lot worse, maybe we do too. It’s good to learn about these things and even begin to prepare, but it’s not time to freak out yet. In Japan it’s another story.

Lastly: every single radiation safety course I have taken has had a part about comparative risk. Tell me the following: what are you more worried about while driving in your car in the US, keeping the vents closed because of radiation or getting T-boned by the 18-year-old girl texting on her phone rather than stopping at the red light?

I find the notion of comparative risk misleading at best. When I get in a car, or walk down the street, or go for a hike, I take an educated risk for the purpose of reaping the personal rewards of my chosen activity.

Here, we are having high consequence risks imposed upon us against our will without enjoying any benefits in return.

You are therefore comparing apples and oranges – two separate kinds of risks that are philosophically, morally and psychologically distinct from each other.

that is exactly the point. If the risks were limited to those who feel their grandiose concepts are worth trading the planet for-fine,let them torch themselves..no doubt such hubris wouldn’t run in the family for long.Instead they are using ours and all living things’ existence as chips in their egotistical intellectual crap game.

I spoke to someone who did lab testing of milk during the nuclear tests in the late 40s and 50s. He said the milk high then was 100.

I am concerned that we are going to be exposed to low-levels of contamination for some time. The situation seems unprecedented because the Chernobyl release was more intense and shorter in duration.

We don’t really know how much plutonium is making it over and that is worrying as well.

I think people’s inclination toward doom stems from a complete lack of faith in our government to protect human health from pollutants linked to the energy industry. Handing of fracking contamination and the BP Gulf disaster (e.g., seafood) illustrate this tendency.

It is easy to think the worst when you have no faith in leadership and Pandora’s box has been unleashed….

While the worst for us will probably be increased incidences of cancer, the lack of health insurance for so many Americans can make that worst case scenario a death sentence….

Chronic low doses are actually higher risk. The detection, training hours for esteemed physicists in health disciplines aren’t set high enough to qualify comments on safety issues or make comparisons for aggregate population chronic, low dose exposure. This is an unprecedented event. The intention to inform is good, the execution is misleading, biased and premature.

And, personally:
Anyone who assumes people who don’t agree with them are “uninformed” is a lazy argument. I prefer source wars: studies. Every study offered on “acceptable levels” regarding chronic low-dose radionuclide exposure By multiple pathways in aggregate population (our situation) disclaims itself in medical health and safety. Except for the studies that support the varied, but consensus opinion here: it’s not safe. Even nuclear physicists may agree that thresholds set for morbidly high fatal cancer isn’t the only life affecting illness from exposure and everyone’s risk and resources are not the same.

Gosh I keep waiting for that new Banana Reactor design and wondering why there aren’t regulations on the disposal of banana peels.

“In Japan it’s another story.”

Take the time to study that new NILU animation – the NW Coast and much of W. Canada have ten times the fallout of San Antonio or Central Florida. In fact the NW Coast is as bad off as much of Japan. The great wheat fields of North America dusted with isotopes every day for more than a biblical 40 days. What is the accumulation and exactly at what level does it become a real danger? Let’s see – no milk, no ice cream, no fish, bread a question mark… I know, let’s just rebrand the crisis – we can call it the Fukushima Diet.

I know…I’m losing weight already. Ok, I always was skinny. Actually, it’s better to be larger in mass–more resistance and absorption tolerance to radiation, from what I understand. I really worry about the kids!!

Yuppers, and the amount of fatty tissues one has can play a part too for storage. More blood flow to these areas the better. I actually worry more about peoples’ inaccessible fat pockets than I do my puny self.

Funny..reminds me of what that nosey old biddy Rachel Lynde said in Anne of Green Gables, “and I don’t know but the wiry ones can work the hardest!”

or worse..Owen: “She don’t mind, she’s short and skinny but she’s strong. Her last one came out sideways and she didn’t scream or nothin” lmao

mothra: Here is a hypothetical question for you. You say that “Chronic low doses of radiation are bad for you”. Then someone comes along and says “The total doses we are getting and expect to get from Fukushima fallout are low enough that the increase in the level over background levels is 5% on average, and nowhere more than 15% over background levels.” In such a case, should you really worry about the increase in radiation you are receiving?

I think the rational response is “there is far more variation in the background radiation that I might receive due to medical procedures or flying, for example, than due to the increased dose from Fukushima fallout, therefore it’s just not worth worrying about”.

The irrational response is “any increased radiation is bad, no matter how small”.

I guess I am trying to help people who are willing to take the rational approach to put the numbers we’ve gotten so far in their proper perspective, while urging vigilance in the measurements and monitoring. And I am trying to convert at least some of the people responding irrationally to this crisis to really think rationally about what a tiny increased risk we have here in the US so far…

Glad to see you’ve given up on me, Doc. I’ll just think of you the same way I do most missionaries. All that ‘level over background stuff’ is just obscuring the more important ingestion problem. Hell you can ramp up that cosmic, ionizing radiation to 10x its average and I won’t complain because it’s pretty small and I don’t eat it. But you can be certain that eating lettuce from the wrong field will have a deep impact on your future. And I’m glad to see you want to monitor with vigilance. How do you feel about the quality of the data so far? By the way, does your example include the admission by TEPCO that releases were far greater than previously announced? For weeks this has been going on. Chernobyl was over by now. How many more weeks until we can put to sleep three ruined reactors open to the atmosphere and two fissioning fuel pools. That’s five sources of radiation, not just one like Chernobyl. By the way, could you share with us your opinion of Arnie Gunderson?

oh puhleeze. man. these dimestore academics with their gradeschool insights are tedious and boring enough as it is. he is a normal blinkered non-thinking drone, one that prefers to abandon all thought and hope at the front door, hooping his mediocre/non-existent social skills and foolish posturing before his invisible god will allow him to remain mindlessly happy in their dull contrived black and white bubbleboy world of nonsense and faked opportunities. some call it success.

and this bit about hiding behind and mawkishly regurgitating the open-ended lies, see-through nonsense, moronic distortions and one-dimensional propaganda of the big box mass media outlets and the Talking Heads is a wee bit, shall we say, contrived, silly and quite unfortunate. yet this is probably expected behavior in this chosen pc tunnelvision “can’t do the math” world.

CAN ANYONE PLEASE HELP CLARIFY THE FILTERING WATER ISSUE? this is what someone else commented about RO systems not being able to filter out radiation… is this true?? “t absolutely sickens me to here the advice from our EPA… Good Grief, they know very well that reverse osmosis and Ion exchange will do so very little to remove any radionuclide from water. I was a plumbing contractor for 14 yrs. and I have installed literally 100’s of reverse osmosis and water softener’s… It is sooo ridiculus and absurd that I almost chocked while reading this. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN FILTER OUT THE RADIO ACTIVE MATERIAL IS TO DISTILL THE WATER…” http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/04/07/how-to-remove-radioactive-iodine-131-from-drinking-water/

Thanks Tony Wilson .. I appreciate the information. So then is distilling going to do anything at all? This is what one person said regarding RO being useless.. “Iodine arrives here in a gaseous form (I2 (g)) carried by winds. If it comes into contact with water, it can dissolve but it is not actually very soluble in water. However if it does dissolve into water (I2 (aq)) it can hydrolysis to form iodide (I-)and hypoiodite (OI-) as well as I3-. This depends on the pH of the water and other variables.

So if the water actually does have radioactive iodide (not iodine) in it, boiling will probably not send it into the air. However it does mean that granular activated carbon (GAC) and reverse osmosis will remove it (neither works on a dissolved gas like iodine).

With that said, if the source of contamination is the air, then any water exposed to the air can become contaminated. Water coming out of the tap may be free of radio-iodide but could it pick up once it is out of the tap. So in-line GAC or RO will not provide much assistance in this situation.”

The bottom line is that I’m not sure if I should have my monthly water service deliver spring water, plain drinking water that has been RO’s but comes from Los Angeles Municipal Water or Distilled Water. I sincerely appreciate any advice you may have. I cannot install an RO system right now. Thank you!

the nuclear industry use sediment beds.
kind of like a big version of an ro unit.
please just forget the distilling stuff..it is good for a non nuclear situation.
the links i have given with the able top trap filter or an ro system with the trap filter on the front end is the best around.
why
because that company treats contaminated sites in the states so have great experience.
most web companys selling radiation removal units are jumping on a horrid band wagon.
radiation removal it does not even mean anything.
like saying kills germs.
they are selling the same stuff with changed text.
buy a counter top system. make sure the filter has zeolite as one of the elements in it.
take control of your water if you care about your health.

Hey…how about some proactive dietary/supplementary changes for fallout protection? The most detailed, comprehensive source for this that I have found is from Gabriel Cousens….google “Gabriel Cousens radiation food” and the blog will show up. Foods/supplements are discussed, i.e. which radioactive isotope that they affect/protect against…..SO, onions, garlic, miso, dark leafy greens, seaweed, green tea, beets, bee pollen, chapparal, zeolite, calcium bentonite, chlorella, spirulina, antioxidants, and on, and on……Short of going on permanent vacation down south, we can get proactive as individuals, protecting ourselves, communities, etc……grow your own food! NOW!…..under cover, of course!….

radegan says “you can ramp up that cosmic, ionizing radiation to 10x its average and I won’t complain because it’s pretty small and I don’t eat it. ”

Firstly, please realize that the cosmic ray muons that come screaming down from the upper atmosphere are way, way more energetic than, say, the beta rays that come out of I-131 or Cs-137.

Because they are so energetic, as you read this sentence a muon will enter your head, ionizing every cell it passes through in your brain, then on into your neck, lungs, liver, gut, and out your bottom, maybe even hitting your gonads on the way. It is clearly not even relevant if it’s “internalized” or not. You are a speed bump to the muon, that’s it. And no, you don’t want a factor of 10 more cosmic radiation, that’s why they limit flight crew time.

You also ask “How do you feel about the quality of the data so far? By the way, does your example include the admission by TEPCO that releases were far greater than previously announced?”

I think that leaving this whole disaster in the hands of a private company, as if it were a private matter, is a crime against humanity. TEPCO has demonstrated that an organization guided solely by the profit motive will act accordingly.

I think that more radiation monitoring of food and water supplies is needed. In fact at UC Davis we are looking into setting up our own gamma spectroscopy system, based on a high resolution germanium detector ($50k) and readout system. I’d like to get students involved in obtaining and measuring samples from our own water supplies, milk, groceries, and local produce. There may be a detector at McLellan AFB that is available, we are looking into it.

Do I think the EPA is doing an adequate job? I don’t know enough yet to render a judgement, but the people should demand that the monitoring continue, and that the reports keep coming. The Berkeley nuclear lab is doing a very good job. Is it adequate? No.

Lastly, Arnie Gunderson is doing a great service to the world in helping us decipher what’s going on at Fukushima. I’ve only found one thing that I don’t think he got quite right – the idea that the early video of Unit 4, showing the grid-like structure under the green fuel loading derrick, was showing the spent fuel rack exposed. I don’t think this notion was borne out in later higher-res photos, but I can see how Arnie might have though that was the rack. And maybe it was, but I think what we were seeing was cable trays and/or explosion debris. The Unit 4 situation still scares me the most, and the idea that the rack was still open to air was pretty frightening. Anyway, keep it up, Arnie!

Whey are there no videos of the unit 4 explosion? It happened in daytime, I believe (6 am JST, right?) No videos of the fire or anything. The Unit 4 building had the crap blown out of it and all TEPCO says is there was a fire. Obvious bullshit. The day that thing blew they evacuated 700 people from the site and TEPCO was ready to abandon ship until basically ordered to stay by the PM. The rods were left exposed for days until the foolish helicopter fiasco, the water cannon fiasco, and finally the concrete pump truck got water on the pool around March 20 or 21. Do the math on that one. That there is/was a molten mass of corium at the bottom of SFP 4 is the only conclusion possible.

extra knight–What is your expertise in this area? You are an extremely disrespectful jerk. I’m sure that pleases you to no end. Why don’t you go dig a deep hole and bury yourself–stay safe!

John Conway, I really appreciate you posting here despite the nasty reception from the Chicken Littles. Some of us prefer getting their information from scientists who actually know what they are talking about. There seems to be general consensus among them about the current risks, and it’s easy enough to know the difference between a research scientist and someone who has a stake in the game. Other people prefer to believe in conspiracy theories and that all scientists are in thrall to some Illuminati overlords and can’t be trusted.

i am not a dimestore academic, if it’s all the same to you. and thanks for the spineless, spiritless and extremely childish ad hominem, only goes to show you are spewing thick and redundant disinformation, and unreasonable viewpoints, that bear little semblance to reality.

Data:
Often it is better to look at the data..
After watching the BP oil spill situation,
I think that opinions from our esteemed institutions of higher education need to be critically examined.
Quite often there proves to be a financial tie between the educational institute and the industry involved.

EVERY opinion needs to be critically examined. For research institutions it may be “follow the money,” but there are also people spreading misinformation who are NOT experts–they have just enough information to sound semi-plausible, especially to people who have no critical reasoning skills or understanding of radiation. All information should be corroborated. All assumptions should be evaluated. There are people out there who feed their egos through getting attention on the net (particularly YouTube). Their opinions are no better than those of agencies funded by power companies. It’s also wrong to dismiss entire agencies–there are good scientists with integrity who work at the EPA; I have met them. Not everyone is tainted by politics. Most are not paid enough to be tainted by politics; many have personal standards that prevent them from knowingly spreading lies.

Fantastic News: BP Made $88.3 Billion in Revenue from January to April
BP today said its profits rose to $7.12 billion, up from $6.08 billion a year earlier. Wonderful! BP also reported its total revenue for the first quarter rose more than 18 percent to $88.31 billion — that’s up from a mere $74.42 billion.

Heart, I agree that the academic and governmental institutions damaged their credibility during the Gulf disaster. But for myself, I learn a great deal by hearing all sides, and the ensuing give and take discussion. And propaganda becomes apparent quickly.

I also have been thinking a lot about your post in another thread.
About the hole in the earth’s crust following the GOS. Do you think that is what lead to the Japanese earthquake, plates shifting and all that?

Also do you believe that all of this has been a by product of corporate greed and political corporation? Or a deliberate attempt to cull the population?

LIVE FEEDS

Receive Occasional Enenews Newsletters

sending...

Name

E-mail

SUPPORT ENENews

ENENews receives no funding from anyone or anything, except 1) People who donate via the button below, and 2) Google, who pays for the two ad spots. Thanks to all who have donated or are planning on doing so, it's nice to know people appreciate your work.